We’re now one third of the way through the 2025 OkGoreberfest 30-Day Horror Challenge. Our challenge for Day 10 asks “What is Your Favorite Monster Movie?”
Eff yeah, monster movies! My two favorite horror themes are “haunted houses” and “monster movies.” Picking a favorite isn’t gonna be easy!
The first task is to decide “What exactly IS a monster?” I mean we know what a monster is, but the definition can be pretty broad. For starters, no vampires, no zombies, no werewolves. Those get their own respective categories. Also, no wild animals gone wild. Some no Jaws, no Piranhas, no killer bees, no alligators, no boa constrictors no wolves of the non-were variety.
This leaves a lot of movie beasts in play. Classic efforts come to mind first. Godzilla and King Kong are the obvious entries (King Kong counts – he’s not a regular gorilla he’s a giant mutant gorilla, and I decided this constitutes a whole new monster and not just your garden-variety wild animal gone wild).
Wait, do giant robots count? How about space aliens? Sure, I suppose that’s fine, so long as the robots aren’t basic normal-sized robots. Gotta be giant robots, like in Pacific Rim.
I didn’t like Pacific Rim, by the way, so it’s not gonna show up as a runner-up.
However there are indeed plenty of runners-up. “It” counts as a monster (and not just a space clown), that one is fantastic, once you decide which Pennywise is the prime Penny! After we decide it’s Tim Curry we can look at other solid contenders, like Cloverfield, The Host, Alien, Jeepers Creepers, The Blob, The Descent and Troll Hunter.
My top pick is John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece “The Thing.” Can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched this one. We place this one in the lifeless isolation at the bottom of the world, an Antarctic science facility. No roads no airports no trains no phones – when you’re there you’re pretty much helpless to the whims of nature. NOW, let’s introduce a secret monster in a dog disguise. “Well hello, strange dog we happen to find running through the Antarctic wasteland, we like dogs – so come on in and become one of us, we’ll not try too hard to figure out where you came from.”
Surprise! It’s a monster in disguise! One that will kill people and pretend to be them, so it can get up next to you and kill you and wear YOUR identity. It’s like a Twilight Zone episode brought into epic scale.
Can you believe this thing (THE Thing) got completely pooped on by critics on its initial release? They called it cold and sterile, mind-numbingly boring, instant junk, and the “quintessential moron movie of the 80’s.” After this initial release, however, it found greater success in the home-media market, and was eventually re-appraised and considered one of the best sci-fi horror movies ever made.
So suck it, 80’s critics!!
If I neglected to point out the practical effects this would be an incomplete review. They are just straight-up bonkers! For a 1982 movie, they just… let me put it to you this way, remember when The Matrix came out, that first one I mean, not the shitty ones. The effects (computer-generated, mind you) were like stuff no one had seen in movies before and they more or less overshadowed everything else in the movie due to their sheer awesomenessitude. In 1982, that was The Thing. The monster effects were next level. Plenty of tension, too, plenty of jump scares. What was the critics’ PROBLEM I ask you!?